See Pinocchio Completely Reimagined by Hellboy Creator Mike Mignola

This isn’t the Pinocchio you remember.

If you only know the story of Pinocchio from the iconic Disney animated film, then you might want to check out Pinocchio: The Illuminated Edition from Beehive Books. This newly released tome reprints the original text of 1883’s The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, pairing it with a lavish set of illustrations from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and annotations by A Series of Unfortunate Events author Daniel Handler, better known by his pen name Lemony Snicket. It’s quite the combo.

With Pinocchio: The Illuminated Edition in stores now, IGN can exclusively reveal all of the more than 50 new images from Mignola featured in the book. Check them out below:

The goal with Pinocchio: The Illuminated Edition is to bring the story back to its darker, creepier roots. As if Mignola’s haunting artwork weren’t enough, Handler’s annotations are designed to tell a horror story all their own, detailing Snicket’s descent into madness as he digs deeper into Collodi’s disturbing world.

“I wish I could take any kind of credit for the Daniel Handler annotations, but I had nothing at all to do with them—I am, however thrilled to have them in there,” Mignola tells IGN. “I remember [publisher] Josh O’Neill asking who I thought we should get for an introduction to the book and I drew a complete blank—So somehow Josh thought of Daniel—A perfect and truly inspired choice! And then somehow an introduction turned into the annotations and the rest is publishing history. Pinocchio is a very odd book and having the Lemony Snicket voice provide a running commentary on it is a truly beautiful (oddly beautiful) thing.”

Handler adds, “Mignola’s artwork has been spooking me for years, and since embarking on this project, I feel the sharp angles of his splintery shadows hanging over me with increasing ferocity, growing and growing with an almost unearthly nasal power.”

You can order a copy of Pinocchio: The Illuminated Edition on Amazon.

In other comic book news, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - The Dead Shall Rise just got an official trailer, and we explore why Steve Ditko might not have wanted to be crowned a Disney Legend.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.